


the truth hurts worse than anything i could bring myself to do to you

by orphan_account



Series: everyone deserves the flames [2]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Fake AH Crew, M/M, Mentioned Character Death, Respawn, it's mostly ray being a good bro and also super fucking gay, the rayvin is rly slight tho don't worry 'bout it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 04:41:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4652670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>here</b>,<br/>a ghost is born again.</p><p><b>there</b>,<br/>the dead walk the earth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the truth hurts worse than anything i could bring myself to do to you

here, a rose is in full bloom. the air smells sweet.

there, a bottle crashes to the ground. a small crack forms.

here, there is a boy. he is lost in time. who he was no longer exists – the townsfolk like to refer to him as a ghost, and he has found a miserable amount of truth in the insult.

there, someone is missing. two people are yelling, their words cruel and thinly veiling their desperation. where there is smoke, there is fire. los santos is burning.

here, two friends– two  _strangers_  meet again. the coffee in this diner is too bitter, though one doesn’t yet realize this: he cannot remember how he likes his coffee. the other remembers. he remembers too much and his companion remembers too little. the air is sweet but the silence too-heavy. one is burdened with memories and the other is weightless without them.

there, those once intimately familiar with one another fall out of touch. they fall apart with two of their number missing. one spends their days drinking, another spends hers in a church. the youngest loses himself in their town of ash, and the last of them all has lost himself in the job. he has died too-often over the past month, has danced with danger even more. the silence looms over them every day, every night, _every moment_ – they remember how it felt to be the only ones alive in a city made for the dead.

here, a ghost is born again.

there, the dead walk the earth.

* * *

overhead, the sky is alight with the dying embers of the day. reds melt into oranges, and oranges bleed into a soft sort of pink: if ray was a particularly sentimental man, he would think the sight beautiful.

instead, ray looks at gavin from across the room. the florescent bulb of the light above him leaves him looking rather dreary: the other looks tired and confused. ray feels something tug his heart at the sight. even now, with what feels like millions of miles between them, ray thinks that gavin is one of the most beautiful things in the room.

they have done this before. back in los santos, the two of them often sought out ways to entertain one another: their boredom was typically solved with a round in some ridiculous video game or a quick prank on one of the others, but sometimes, the two of them branched out. went for a round of mini-golf or bowling. held a photo-booth at the local movie theatre captive for a night and spent well-over a hundred dollars on photo reels.

and sometimes, they ended up at a local café or diner or even a club. they would spend the night stealing glances, sat strategically across the room from one another. when ray would stand to leave, gavin would jump out of his chair and catch him at the door  _–_  a sheepish grin, a murmured  _hello there, love_ ; workers and the other patrons would stare at them in bewilderment or perhaps even amusement, and then gavin would lean down and–

ray breathes.

 _you’re okay_ , he has to tell himself. it has been a long month without his partner in crime around to indulge in their shared ridiculous fantasies.  _you’re here to bring gavin home, asshole. don’t get sappy._ and of course, this is the moment gavin looks over and meets ray’s gaze.

“well, fuck.” ray murmurs under his breath, though he doesn’t look away from gavin. he finds he doesn’t want to. he remembers barbara’s throwaway comment of  _i could drown in your eyes, gavino_ , and suddenly finds an obscene amount of truth in the words. after a moment, ray raises his hand and gestures two fingers in a half-assed wave.

to his surprise, gavin smiles in return. there is still something wary in his eyes, like he isn’t quite sure why this stranger waving at him seems so familiar. at least, ray supposes, this is something. something is better than nothing, in the long run.

they stay like that through the night, sat closer than usual in a foreign diner. the waitress never comments on the glances the two of them keep stealing and instead keeps to pouring them too-bitter coffee and letting them be for the night. ray is thankful for that.

when one am rolls around, they are the only two left. there is a waitress and a cook, though ray hasn’t seen either of them in a surprisingly long time.  _probably banging out the back_ , ray supposes  _–_ he had done the same with a pretty little thing called tina, back when he’d lived out in vice city and worked at a local gamestop a while.

“do i know you?”

ray blinks owlishly for a moment, before looking over to see a very-sheepish gavin free staring back at him. for a moment, ray wonders how he should answer the question –both lying and telling the truth would only serve to confuse gavin more. the lesser of two evils, then.

“yeah,” he answers after too-long a pause. he sees gavin’s face fall in confusion. “you used to. something happened and you forgot me. i’m here to bring you home, buddy.”

and then there is something terribly hopeful in gavin’s expression, something that tugs viciously at ray’s heartstrings. when he’d first caught wind of gavin free hiding out in england, he had imagined a number of things. this–  _this_  never even registered as a possibility. gavin has always seemed untouchable in ways the rest of them will never be. 

“we’re going home?” gavin squeaks out, eyes alight in childlike excitement. “i have a home?”

* * *

later, gavin’s stare feels like knives in ray’s back. the two of them are in some sort of local entertainment store, and ray has all-but set up camp near the x-box display. the workers seem to take some kind of pity in the two-ratty looking kids who keep turning up in their store and leave them be, for the most part.

now, ray is playing call of duty. there is something practiced and methodical about the show, something that soothes ray.

“where’s your purple hoodie?” gavin asks after a while.

ray almost drops the controller in shock. gavin has been remembering little things for a while now, but he has always needed ray’s prompting – this is the first time gavin has remembered anything about ray at all, let alone on his own. something about the fact leaves ray grinning like a young child on christmas. “left it in los santos.”

they have been in europe a while now, though they have long left england. they spent some time down in france, though ray much prefers italy. whilst france had been beautiful with its flowers and lights, there is something homely about italy. gavin has slowly been remembering parts of his life spent in the lonely canals around here, and his stories tell of excitement and wonder.

“geoff’s probably monked off on it by now.”

ray laughs so hard he cries.

* * *

gavin looks like an angel when he sleeps.

it has been perhaps a month now, since the night in a diner in the middle of london. italy almost feels like home. gavin’s memory has been getting better and better, and he tells ray stories of the years he’d spent in italy so long ago – he is yet to remember all-too much about los santos, but ray is comforted by the fact gavin can remember italy so clearly.

they have been sleeping in the same bed since arriving in vienna, over a week ago. it had been awkward at first, with ray hesitant to sleep through fear of losing gavin once again and gavin still barely recalling too much about ray: but it feels comfortable now, much like it had what feels like an entire lifetime ago now.

still, ray tries his best to wake as early as possible: he is still afraid of waking up to find that this has all been a dream, that their pyromaniac of a hacker is still dead in a basement out in the middle of san andreas and that the past month has been nothing but a desperate scenario his mind has dreamt up to try and relieve his grief.

gavin is still sleeping when ray wakes, today. there is no sign of the chaos of yesterday, when ray had woken up to find gavin suffering through a nightmare. his face is evened out in sleep, his breaths coming out slow. gavin is peaceful.

ray is surprised to find that he does not want to leave the bed today. or ever, perhaps. he could spend all of today in this shitty hotel room in the middle of a particularly shady district of vienna, taking solace in the fact that gavin is  _alive_  and  _here_  and so  _incredibly warm_. he thinks he could maybe spend the rest of eternity here, wrapped in gavin’s arms and his breath warm on ray’s chest.

however, ray knows this would be selfish. it is time for them to head home to los santos.

* * *

**> >> text received**: mogar at 11:01PM  
                                _Where the fuck are you, asshole ??? Nobody’s seen you in a month._

 **> >> text received**: dggeoff at 3:01AM  
                                _CAN YOU ANSWE R YOUR FUCKING PHONE_

 **> >> text received**: jackie-girl at 5:11AM  
                                _this isn’t cool, you fuck. call us back when you see this, okay?_

 **> >> text received**: rye-bread at 5:12AM  
                                _Lindsay says one of the girls got intel that someone had seen you and Gav in France. What the fuck, man? You find Gavin’s long-dead brother and take him on a trip around the world?_

 **> >> text received**: burnie burns at 9:01AM  
                                _Barbara just called me in tears. Says she saw a photo of you and Gavin. Geoff’s been calling me frantically trying to find you for the past month, dude. What the fuck’s going on?_

 **> >> text received**: tuggster at 9:45AM  
                                _did you pull a frankenstein. you did. didn’t you. you prick._  
**< << text sent**: tuggster at 10:01AM  
                                _how many times do i have to tell you i don’t understand your fancy literature references, lindsay?_  
**> >> text received**: tuggster at 10:03AM  
                                _there is no fucking way you didn’t read frankenstein when you went to school, narvaez!_  
**< << text sent**: tuggster at 11:05AM  
                                _i will fucking fight you on this._  
**< << text sent**: tuggster at 11:09AM  
                                _also can you please pick us up from los santos international in an hour. i’m like 99% sure i’m going to get my ass kicked the moment we land and i’d rather have you around to protect this hot piece of puerto-rican-ass._  
**> >> text received**: tuggster at 11:21AM  
                                _… you found him, didn’t you? you son of a bitch._  
**< << text sent**: tuggster at 11:23AM  
                                _:)_

* * *

there, a plane will soon land.

there, the dead will be granted a second chance.

( and then a third, a fourth, a fifth– )

in the city of ash, the sun will finally shine again.


End file.
